Review: Great Pacific #2

The second issue of the new environmental series from writer Joe Harris and artist Martin Morazzo hits shelves December 5th and you will want to say you were there when it started. The first issue of this new Image book showed up at local comic book shops last month and presented the interesting idea of environmentalism for profit with an intriguing main character named Chas Worthington. This corporate centered comic book follows Chas as he attempts to set up his own country in a garbage patch in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. In the second issue Chas has landed on his garbage patch with his crew. He leaves his faithful friend, Alex, back near the settlement to start setting up their community while Chas goes on exploring the fast garbage patch which is around double the size of Texas.

The first issue of this series held my interest enough to make me pick up the second issue but this issue really captured my attention. The story moves considerably slower than the first issue, taking its time and exploring characters while still forwarding the story enough to retain attention. I don’t want to spoil anything but what happens in this issue will surprise readers who read the first issue. Harris takes readers down a more mystical path than we were previously led to believe possible from the first issue. There is more corporate talk and it’s interesting to see this mixture of action and business politics. Great Pacific is clearly a politically conscious book and Harris checks his facts, explaining oil subsidies in a way that the average reader can grasp.

The dialog written by Harris captures the Texas stereotype attitude very well, with guns and all around rudeness. The dialog is witty and clever and I never feel he is writing just to fill space. At the end of this issue the overwhelming feel is that the parameters that had been established in the previous issue were being thrown out and this is an “anything is possible” book. Again, I don’t want to spoil anything but Harris throws in more than one surprise for the readers.

I hope in future issues to see some more of the corporate espionage and trickery I saw in the first issue. Although I enormously enjoyed this issue, I hope that this new kind of mystic feeling doesn’t carry the series but simply adds on to the established corporate crusader that we were introduced to in the first issue.

The idea behind Great Pacific is imaginative and unique in our world of comic books. In a world of superheroes battling each other and zombies roaming vast landscapes, it’s nice to see something out of the ordinary with a book about environmentalism and corporate malpractice. This book is becoming more important in a world filled with corporate fat cats. It reminds us that in a world full of companies that care about nothing more than profit margins, it’s important to remember the true sense of discovery that drove these companies to the top in the first place.

So go out to your local comic book shop and pick up this months issue of Great Pacific.